


The Seeds of Time

by Annariel



Series: Season 2b [3]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Timeline, Female Protagonist, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-13
Updated: 2010-08-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/pseuds/Annariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anomaly opens back to the time of the sand scorpions.  Helen uses it to try to send a warning to Nick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Seeds of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Luka for beta-reading.

Helen had taken the train from Oxford to Paddington just after the morning rush hour. She had no desire to spend the journey crammed into a carriage with hundreds of commuters. She picked idly at a discarded newspaper as she travelled. The Metro wasn't really interested in politics, so Lucia Wright's promotion to Home Secretary barely warranted a mention. The ARC had been in an uproar of gossip when she had last been there, earlier that week. The place was full of speculation about Lucia's replacement. Personally Helen suspected that Lucia would continue to keep an extremely close eye on the project.

The press coverage in the broadsheets had been more interesting though, and had included a couple of potted biographies which were, indirectly, the reason behind her trip. She had arranged to meet contacts at the Natural History Museum but had left herself time to drop by the British Library and check the newspaper collection. She was particularly interested in references to Lucia's father who had, apparently, disappeared thirty years ago in 1978. If she'd been Lyle, she would have said her thumbs were itching.

Three hours later she had two interesting facts at her disposal. Firstly, Lucia's father had been a professor of Physics at Bristol University. Secondly, he was last seen near the Forest of Dean. She sent a text to a colleague, one Dr. Parry, at Bristol asking if the library held any of the good professor's papers.

# The Seeds of Time

_If you can look into the seeds of time,_

  
and say which grain will grow and which will not,

  
speak then unto me."

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Helen regarded the anomaly in front of her warily. It was inside a shed on an abandoned piece of wasteland behind a housing estate.

"Do we know where it goes?" she asked.

"Do you mean you don't?" countered Connor, though he grinned at her as he said it.

"You know I don't. You've seen my notes."

He nodded and tweaked the controls on his robot. It moved forwards and backwards noisily.

"All set," he said.

"Of you go then."

The robot trundled through the anomaly and Helen turned to look at the screens. Brilliant, bright blue sky and sand showed up on the monitor.

"Looks like the Silurian," said Abby. "That last anomaly to the Silurian was on the estate."

"Could be," agreed Connor. "The atmospheric composition is about right." He tapped at a couple of dials. Helen really needed to learn what they were all measuring.

Suddenly the anomaly pulsed and vanished. Connor cursed.

"Never mind," said Helen. "You can always build another robot."

She straightened up. "OK, team. That was all a bit of an anti-climax. Let's head on home."

* * *

They were halfway back to the ARC when Helen's phone rang. She frowned into it as an excited technician at the other end told her loudly that the anomaly had re-opened. Stephen was already signalling to pull off at the upcoming motorway exit.

"I take it we're going back," he said.

"So it would seem," agreed Helen. She looked into the back where Connor and Abby were sat, hands almost, but not quite, touching.

"Cheer up Connor. Looks like we might get your robot back."

* * *

The next morning Helen reached the anomaly site early. The previous day had been frustrating. By the time they'd got back to the estate, following entanglement in rush hour traffic, the anomaly had vanished again. It had been late though, and it had seemed unwise to return to the ARC. A phone call to Jenny had got them rooms in a nearby B&amp;B and a hasty shift system had been arranged for watching the anomaly.

Connor was already there when she arrived at the tail end of his shift. She squatted next to him and peered over his arm at the laptop screen.

"What have you got for me?"

"It opens and closes on a three-hourly cycle. Two hours open. One hour shut."

Helen stared back at it. "Any idea how long it'll do that for?"

"I'm working on it."

Helen stared at him.

"Really! I'll work it out."

Helen straightened up and went to stand before the glittering light, thoughtfully.

"I suppose I'd better call the military in. I've better things to do than stand here watching in case one of those sand scorpions gets out."

"About that...."

"Yes?" Helen turned around with her best encouraging smile. Something in Connor's tone told her he was on to something.

"The girl turned up about an hour ago."

"What girl?"

"The girl from the housing estate." Connor gestured behind them.

"Connor, I don't know what you're talking about."

"When the anomaly opened on the housing estate last year a girl got lost through it, chasing her dog."

"And she's just turned up through this one."

Connor gestured at the robot's monitor screens and Helen walked over to look at them. She cold just make out a small figure perched on some rocks in the distance. "Fascinating."

"That means that Nick and Stephen will be through in a few hours' time," Connor's voice faltered.

Helen squatted back beside Connor once more and pondered how much she actually trusted him. "You said changing history was really complex."

Connor gave her a half-hearted smile. "Got to be worth a chance, though, hasn't it."

Helen looked at the monitor. "There's a lot of sand between us and those rocks."

"Walk like a fremen!"

"What?"

"You know, from Dune?" Connor gazed at her hopefully. "Classic novel? Sand worms and spice in the desert? Paul Atreides? Sting?"

Helen had gazed at him levelly throughout. "I've heard of Sting," she finally conceded.

She was interested to note Connor's eyes had glazed over slightly. He was grappling with how to explain a concept from the geek hive mind to one of the "not-we". "So there are these sand worms, right, who track people by sound, rhythmic thumps on the desert sand."

"Like the scorpions?"

"Right! Like the scorpions. So, the fremen have a special walk. It has no rhythm so the sand worms think it's just random noise, not something moving."

Helen nodded slowly. "Walk like a fremen." It made a weird kind of sense but was she really going to trust her life to an idea Connor had read in a aci-gi novel? She eyed the anomaly speculatively and fished her phone from her pocket.

"Stephen? Can you come to the anomaly site? There's something interesting here."

"Why do you want Stephen?" Connor asked, a little sulkily, as she shut down the phone.

"Lucia has expressly forbidden any attempt to change history so I want this to be as quick and simple as possible. Stephen knows exactly what happened last time. I want to know that too."

* * *

"Right," said Helen, after Stephen had finished his tale. "You didn't detect this anomaly after the other one closed, so it must have finished its cycle by then."

She began thinking through the options. Connor sat by his laptop, his retrieved robot next to him. Stephen was lounging up against the wall of the shed. Abby seemed to have tagged along with him and she was sat in a corner, perched on top of a workbench of some kind.

"I think our best bet is to be waiting as you and Nick come through the other anomaly." Helen said to Stephen, "You talk to them and then we high-tail it back here as fast as possible. We need to time it right, though. I don't want to get involved with Leek's goons."

"And yours," said Abby, a touch of hardness in her voice.

Helen sighed, irritated by the harping over the past. She had always been more interested in fixing things than assigning blame. However, these days Abby was mostly playing nicely, with only the occasional snipe, so Helen decided to be graceful. "Yes, the goons employed by me _and_ Leek, happy? We don't want to run into them, so we should wait here, observing, and not head through until after we've seen them get attacked."

"I'll send the robot back through," said Connor. "I doubt it will be visible from the other anomaly and we'll be able to watch."

"Need any help?" said a voice suddenly.

The door to the shed was pulled open and Lieutenant William Slater walked in wearing full military gear. Helen cursed silently. They would have to get him away from the anomaly.

"Lieutenant," she said, smiling winningly. "What an unexpected surprise."

Slater brushed past her to the anomaly.

"You planning to go through there and interfere with history?" he asked.

Helen looked at Connor who shrugged helplessly at her.

"You popped up when I went through that anomaly on the housing estate," Slater said. "Persuaded me to go back. Saved my life."

"You weren't there," said Stephen.

"I wasn't there when you were. I was before you arrived though, on Mr Leek's orders."

"You were working for Leek!" said Stephen and he lunged at Slater.

Slater blocked the blow and then punched back, knocking Stephen to the ground. "Don't mess with me, son," he warned. "I'm the regimental boxing champion."

Abby and Connor helped Stephen to his feet. Helen couldn't help a slight grin. Stephen quite fancied himself as the action man and seeing people's pride get deflated always amused her. She eyed Slater thoughtfully. "Why should we trust you?"

The man drew his sidearm, pointing it at her. "No reason," he said, "so I'm going to come with you. Make sure we do this properly."

He grabbed her arm, pressing the muzzle of the gun to her head, and backed towards the anomaly facing Stephen, Abby and Connor. "I see anyone following us, I kill her. Everyone understand?"

They nodded.

Helen found herself standing on a sandy surface. The anomaly cast a pale light, letting her pick out rolling dunes. Slater was still gripping her arm with the gun pressed to her head. Surreptitiously Helen scraped at the sand with her foot and was relieved to feel rock just below the surface.

"So? What now, Lieutenant?" she asked.

She was pushed forwards. "Walk!"

Carefully, she started to walk along the rocky outcrop. It wasn't long before her breathing became heavy in the oxygen-starved air. In the dark it was easy to see the second anomaly ahead of her. The night was clear. Helen was accustomed now to moving at night by the light of the moon. It wasn't something she chose to do, but it was a useful skill that had saved her life on several occasions. It now made her confident as she walked. If there had been anything that approximated cover, she would have made a run for it. The rocky ground continued, but she kept her eyes open for disturbances in the sand. The scorpions could walk on rock after all.

They stopped in front of the second anomaly and Helen was grateful for the slight breeze that wafted through it bringing fresh air to them.

"You wait here to warn my younger self," said Slater.

He looked around. Helen couldn't help raising her eyebrows at him. She had already regretted the lack of places to hide; now she felt a twinge of vindictive pleasure. He was going to have to walk back to the other anomaly and trust she would remain here.

"We'll wait together," he said.

"That's not what you said happened," pointed out Helen.

"I'm changing what happened."

Helen felt a small chill of fear run down her spine. This was getting out of hand. She pondered how to manipulate him. She'd never noticed him being particularly susceptible to her charms but it had to be worth a try, especially if she offered a little more than a tantalising glimpse of cleavage. She tugged downwards at the bottom of her jacket, aware this emphasised her assets. At that moment, however, the anomaly next to them pulsed and two men stepped through.

"What the fuck!" said Slater's younger self.

"Look mate!" said Slater. "You want to go right back through that anomaly now. There's serious trouble this side."

"Go fuck yourself," said the other. "I don't know who you are but you ain't fooling me."

Helen closed her eyes, anger welling up inside her at the extent to which this situation was out of control. In doing so she became more aware of her other senses and, in particular, of the ground trembling beneath her feet.

"Too late," she shouted and threw herself backwards as a large scorpion erupted from the sand.

There was the sound of automatic gunfire and a scream. The gunfire continued. Then there was a low whump, probably a small explosive of some sort. Helen felt the blast wash over her. She raised herself on her elbows. In the half-light she could see both William Slaters, but not the third man. The Slaters stood back to back, guns at the ready.

"Was that the trouble you were referring to?" asked the younger Slater.

"Possibly," said the older one. "_I_ did as I was told and headed back through the anomaly. Robinson didn't, though, and he never came back."

"Looks like he won't be coming back this time either."

"Is one of you two going to help me up?" asked Helen.

She watched them exchange a glance. "No," said the older man.

Irritated, Helen clambered to her feet and brushed her hands.

"Well, now everyone's happy, we should go."

She deliberately turned her back on them and started off towards the other anomaly. Involuntarily she glanced in the direction of the rocky outcrop, where she knew Taylor Crane was waiting.

There was the sound of running feet behind her.

"You wait for me," said Slater and grabbed her arm.

She looked around. Both Slater's were next to her. "Shouldn't you be back through the anomaly?" she asked the younger one.

"I want a good excuse for why I didn't do as told, otherwise I'm buggered. What did you tell Leek?" he asked the older one.

"Not much and he wasn't happy. But he's the one who's buggered. He'll be dino-chow in a matter of weeks. You'll do better to throw your lot in with Lester or, better still, Lucia Wright."

"So I'm up shit creek if I go back. Let's say I bypass the whole business and come back with you."

"Well that will bugger things up right and proper."

Helen sighed. "I'll leave you two to argue. I'm going to go and talk to Taylor."

Both guns were raised. "Why?" they asked in unison.

"Because I have a bit of tweaking I want to do too. I don't see how it interferes with your plans and if you keep schtum about what I'm doing, I'll keep schtum about what you did."

Without asking further, she set off across the sand.

"Walk like a fremen," Connor had said. Helen worked to control her breathing and, at the same time, to keep her footfalls random. It was a bright night, and there were two anomalies, but even so she could only just see the rocks ahead of her. She took a step, and then two in quick succession and then paused. Then she took another step. This was going to take a while.

"Taylor?" she said quietly as she came up to the rocks.

She saw the girl's figure start up suddenly from where she had been sitting. "Who are you?" came a voice.

"I have a message I'd like you to deliver."

"You what?"

"I have a message I want you to deliver."

"And why should I do that?"

Stephen had said the girl was spiky. Helen liked a challenge but now was not the time. "Look, Taylor, two men will be along shortly to rescue you."

"Why don't you rescue me? Why should I deliver any sort of message for you?"

Helen tried to reign in her irritation. Kids! Who needed them? "It's complicated. Just trust me, OK. Nick and Stephen will turn up tomorrow to get you out of here. You have to tell Stephen not to trust Helen. Have you got that? Tell them that Leek is the traitor."

"Why should I trust you? Who are you? Why can't I come with you?"

"You just can't, all right. Nick and Stephen will rescue you. It will all be fine. Just deliver the message, OK!"

"Deliver it yourself. If you're not going to help me I don't see why I should help you."

"Well it can't hurt to tell them when they turn up, can it?" argued Helen in exasperation. "They can do what they like with the information. It'll save their lives and they'll have just saved yours. Fair's fair."

"Go away. I'm not talking to you."

Helen resisted the temptation to slap the child. She wished she could see the girl's face in the dark. Her figure was hunched up with her arms held tight around her knees. Helen scrambled down off the rocks and started back across the sands.

"I hope the monsters get you," Taylor shouted after her but there was a wobble in the child's voice that prevented it sounding like much of a threat.

Helen wasn't naturally the mothering type but she allowed herself a small feeling of guilt over leaving the child here. However, the girl would be fine, and hopefully she would pass on the message. Helen looked across the sand to where the Slaters were waiting. She tutted irritably and continued on her way, leaving Taylor where she was.

The two Slaters were both still there when she returned across the sandy stretch. Both guns were pointed at her.

"What did you do?" asked the elder one.

"None of your business," she snapped back. "Are we going to get on with this or not?" She glanced at the second man.

"Come on then," he said.

The anomaly glittered ahead of them. Helen strode towards it irritably. Hopefully they could show the younger Slater around. He'd be satisfied, and then go back to his own time.

She stepped through briskly. Stephen, Abby and Connor were all waiting anxiously on the other side.

"Did it work?" began Connor and then shut up suddenly as the Slaters emerged.

"Who's this?" asked Stephen, hackles visibly rising.

"They're both Slater," said Helen.

"Who?"

Helen's heart sank. She turned back to the two men and the anomaly behind them. The anomaly pulsed once and then vanished. Helen swore.

"This is going to be complicated," she sighed. "Someone had better contact Lester and Lucia."

* * *

This was the first time Helen had had a one-to-one interview with Lucia which had not involved her being locked up first. It was strangely disorientating to be sat together in the wood-panelled office Lucia maintained at the ARC. It was cosy and warm and reeked of political privilege and old money. It was such a contrast to the rest of the ARC that Helen wondered if it were some kind of protest, presumably against the ubiquitous steel and glass.

"What do think?" asked Lucia.

"Is he telling the truth? Yes, I think so," said Helen. "I know he was recruited by Leek. I'm pretty sure that, in one time line, I must have warned him to get the hell out of the Silurian, back through the anomaly and to dissociate himself from Leek. In the time line I remember he just forced me to go through at gunpoint and then his younger self, being equally suspicious, insisted on coming back this way."

"Why do you think he felt he needed to urge you through at gunpoint?"

"Neither of us has been exactly discreet about the fact you ordered me not to attempt any changes of history. I'm guessing he didn't trust the new status quo."

Lucia nodded absently, shuffling papers. She'd shuffled them every time she wanted to give the impression of consulting something. Helen had noticed that they were, in fact, a mixture of constituency letters and press clippings. She had a warm smug feeling at having detected Lucia in a ruse, however minor.

"I've checked up on Slater's background," said Lucia. "He went AWOL about six months ago. The day that anomaly on the housing estate opened up."

"Now we know why," agreed Helen.

Lucia sighed. "I'm not happy about this. Not happy at all. I want that recurring anomaly of yours watched. I'm going to keep the Slaters detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act until I'm sure they can't go back through it and attempt to meddle again. No one goes through that anomaly. Nothing comes out of that anomaly. There's to be absolutely no more meddling with that bit of history."

Helen liked being able to look someone in the eye and tell them the honest truth. Not only because it happened so rarely but also because she knew her body language would subtly betray her confidence and that disoriented people. "I wouldn't dream of it," she said.

Helen left the room with a bounce in her step. She couldn't help it, could she, if she allowed herself small amounts of pleasure than not everything was going Lucia's way.

* * *

Helen's good mood faltered, however, on encountering Connor in the corridor. The poor lamb continued to display pretty much every passing thought on his face.

"What's happened?" she asked.

"One of the sand scorpions got out."

"How?"

He shrugged anxiously. "Lyle just radioed," he said.

Helen cursed. "We'd better get back to the site."

* * *

The Special Forces teams were there in large numbers by the time they got back.

"What the hell happened?" she demanded of Lyle as she got out of the four-by-four.

"The anomaly opened earlier than expected. Some of the lads got caught on the hop."

His mouth snapped shut and his face was impassive. Helen could tell that she wasn't going to be getting any names out of him.

"Take Stephen to where you last sighted it," she said. "See what he can do."

Lyle nodded. Stephen had already unpacked his rifle. Helen watched the two men walk away.

"Connor! Abby!" She looked into the back of the truck. "Keep in touch by radio. If you get any bright ideas where it might have gone let us know."

Connor was hunched over his laptop, looking up anything he could find on Silurian life.

"I'm feeling a bit useless here," said Abby.

"You're the behaviour expert," said Helen. "You're going to have to translate whatever Connor finds into something we can actually use."

She looked up and was unsurprised to see Jenny walking toward her.

"Before you ask," she said, holding up a hand, "I have no idea what it is, where it is or what it might do. I've Connor working the database. If you stay here you'll know everything as soon as I do."

Jenny's mouth twitched into what might have almost been an appreciative smile. Without a word she climbed into the passenger seat.

"OK, Connor!" Helen heard her say, "what have you got for me?"

* * *

Helen watched Stephen and Lyle from afar. Stephen was looking all around him, mostly at the ground, intent and focused. Lyle hung back, letting him do his job. They walked over to the edge of the wasteground. Helen's curiousity got the better of her and she walked over to see.

The wasteground fell away into a railway siding, a disused one, judging by the weeds and undergrowth that infested the track. Stephen and Lyle were cautiously picking their way down the side of the slope. When they reached the bottom, Stephen looked both ways and then headed for the tunnel entrance.

"Lyle, Stephen," she ordered from her vantage point. "Wait there, let's find out where this tunnel goes."

She headed back to the truck, Connor and his laptop.

"Connor, where does that disused railway tunnel lead?"

Connor looked up. His gaze followed the line of her pointing finger and then he glanced down and started typing. "Give me a minute or two," he said.

"I'll phone the council," said Jenny briskly.

By the time Connor had pulled up several maps and a history of the Great Northeastern Railway, Jenny had navigated her way succinctly and, in some cases, aggressively through the successive hierarchies of the local council, spoken to the planning department and intimidated someone called Mr Jennings who, it seemed, had access to some plans of interest.

"The far end is blocked," she reported. "But there are several access hatches from above."

"Lucia wants the scorpion captured and returned, not killed unless it's absolutely necessary," reported Helen, recalling the extremely brief conversation she'd had with Lucia before she set out. The appearance of the two William Slaters had clearly rattled her. Helen would have been amused how solicitous it had suddenly made her for pre-historic life, were it not for the inconvenience it was going to cause.

"I need a large cage," she said.

"I'm on it." Jenny got out her mobile phone once more.

"What do you know about scorpions?" Helen asked Abby.

"Ummm...., they glow in ultraviolet light?"

"Cute, but not immediately helpful."

"Nocturnal, not generally aggressive to humans."

"That will be because humans are generally several hundred times their size," said Connor. "That's not really the case here, is it?"

"Nocturnal I can work with, though." Helen flashed Abby a smile and raised her eyebrows at Connor. She didn't want the girl to get surly and difficult, so a little bonding at the expense of the men-folk probably wouldn't go amiss.

She picked up the radio from the front of the truck and tuned into the SF frequency.

"Lyle, I want a perimeter to contain the scorpion in the tunnel until the cage arrives. Meanwhile, I want a team to walk the length of the tunnel above ground and check for any place it might manage to get out."

"Then what?" crackled Lyle's voice.

"We wait for the cage."

* * *

It was dusk by the time the cage arrived, but Helen suspected that would, in fact, serve her purposes better.

She and Stephen entered the tunnel system by the far entrance, an unpleasant climb down an ancient ladder with the constant risk it might come away from the wall or kill them in some other interesting fashion. They had night vision goggles and ultra-violet light sources. Stephen had put up token resistance when Lyle had silently handed them rifles and amour-piercing rounds, but Helen's irritated snap that he didn't have to get himself killed just to prove that Nick could sometimes be wrong had shut him up. The paranoia Nick had managed to communicate to the team about harming pre-historic life frequently irritated her and she was damned if she was going into the tunnel armed only with a tranquiliser rifle, whatever Lucia had said.

Helen landed lightly on the tunnel floor and flashed the torch both ways. She was reassured that she could see no scorpions. Stephen landed, cat-like, beside her.

"What now?" he asked, quietly.

"We get to the blocked end of the tunnel and then work our way back down to the entrance."

Helen walked quietly in the direction of the blockage, Stephen just behind her. She was glad Connor wasn't there to blunder around. Even Abby, who was careful and well-coordinated, could be heard coming if you were listening. She and Stephen had spent a long, hot summer in Madagascar, back in her old, old life. She had been impressed then at the natural silence of his movements and he had clearly got better at it since. As had she, for that matter. Quietly they paced down the tunnel.

She felt Stephen touch her arm, but it was unnecessary. She had also seen the flash of blue in the ultraviolet light. The scorpion was ahead of them. She stopped still and considered their options, feeling Stephen close behind her.

They had discussed this. It hunted by sound, so the conclusion was that it probably had poor eye-sight. Helen turned to face Stephen and pulled out a flare, so he could see it in her hand. She watched him take a step backwards, fading into the wall of the tunnel, then she slung the rifle over her back so her hands were free, Stephen handed her the aluminium pipe he was carrying. She walked forward a few paces, took a deep breath and then lit the flare.

"Oi!" she shouted, "Oi!" and she banged on the metal rails with the aluminium pipe.

"It's moving," Stephen's voice whispered in her ear on her radio headset.

Helen turned on her heels and ran, dragging the pipe behind her so it clattered against the rails. It made a lot of noise, but if she hefted it up for a second or two, she could hear the sounds of scuttling feet. She glanced behind, but the flare she was carrying was causing night blindness. All she could see was darkness.

She ran into the small circle of light, praying there were no landslips or collapses she would have to scramble over. She trusted Stephen was behind the thing with his gun at the ready. She had to.

There was a shout up ahead of her. It sounded like Lyle, ordering the men. Not much further now. Some instinct made her duck and she heard a snap of chitin above her. There was a sound of gunfire. She swore quietly but, apparently, the creature paused. No claws snapped at her neck or feet. She ran on, up the ramp, into the cage and through the small door at the far end. There was a crash of shell meeting metal. She turned back. The creature was thrashing in the large cage. Already the metal door at the far end was closed. Stephen, now joined by several of the soldiers, was just locking it into place.

She jumped down from the platform to find herself face to face with a cheerily grinning Lyle.

"I suppose it was you ordered them to shoot," she said, furiously.

Lyle shrugged. "Just trying to scare it a bit. I told them to aim high." He eyed her with dislike. "Wouldn't have wanted to hurt the scorpion after all. It's entirely innocent, just obeying its nature."

"Don't be smart!" she sniped back but then mentally kicked herself. Alienating Lyle, however irritating his smug exterior, was not going to help her plans.

* * *

The anomaly opened one last time, at dawn, hours after it had last closed. They pushed the cage back through and opened it up, letting the creature out and into the sand. Helen, perched on the back of the cage, squinted across the wasteland towards the rock but, of course, Taylor, Nick and Stephen were no longer there.

* * *

"This woman turned up," said Taylor as they walked towards the car Lester had provided to get them back home.

"What woman?" asked Nick.

Taylor shrugged. "Don't know, some woman. She said not to trust Helen."

Nick laughed mirthlessly. "Not much danger of that."

Taylor nodded as she climbed into the car. "Fair enough, then. She also said not to trust Leek."

* * *

"And you didn't think about it again?" asked Helen, irritated.

Stephen glared at her over the steering wheel. "'Course I thought about it again. I even tried to discuss it with Nick, but he said it was just you playing mind games and not to pay attention. If anything, I think he was more inclined to trust Leek afterwards than before."

Oh Nick! Helen sighed inwardly.

"I did pay attention," insisted Stephen. "I was cautious."

Helen bit back the urge to say "not cautious enough." It wasn't going to help her now.

Stephen dropped her outside the house she had once shared with Nick. She considered inviting him in. She'd teach Jenny to try to warn her off, but she needed Jenny even more than she needed Stephen. She consoled herself with the thought that revenge was best served cold as she flounced up the steps, swinging her hips.

Inside the front door was a package. Ripping it open she was rewarded with photocopies of a dozen or so papers. Half an hour later her suspicions were confirmed. She might not have been a physicist but she knew enough to understand what the papers were telling her. Professor Wright had known all about the anomalies.


End file.
